MORE: Northwestern basketball year in review

"Never again."

Those two words from Northwestern head coach Pat Fitzgerald at the end of the 2019 season rang hollow throughout 2021. Because it happened again.

NU followed up a Big Ten West championship in 2020 by repeatedly getting their teeth kicked in en route to a 3-9 record. The same thing happened in 2019, when the Cats chased a West title with a 3-9 disaster.

Michigan State running back Kenneth Walker III set the tone for the Wildcats' season by going 75 yards to the house right through the heart of the NU defense on the first play of the season. It didn't get much better from there.

The bright spots were few and far between, but they were there. A dominant win over Auburn to ring in the new year and send retiring defensive coordinator out with his 400th career win. Rashawn Slater and Greg Newsome II were picked in the first round of the NFL draft in the spring. Even during the season, Evan Hull and Stephon Robinson Jr. were able to make exciting plays. Northwestern even hung with CFP participant Michigan for a half in the Big House.

The overall tone of 2021 in the Northwestern football world was colossal disappointment, though. The program had tremendous momentum coming off of a top-10 finish to the 2020-21 season, the Wildcats’ highest since 1995, and the two aforementioned first-round picks for the first time in school history. But that all came to a screeching halt in the 2021 season. Fitzgerald has pulled the Wildcats out of rough spots before, and he will have to do so once again when the calendar flips to 2022.

Here are the high point, low point and player of the year for NU football in 2021:

Hey, at least the year started out on a high note. Northwestern spent New Year's Day beating Auburn 35-19 in the Vrbo Citrus Bowl.

NU was in command the whole game, despite missing several key contributors. Senior wide receiver Ramaud Chiaokhiao-Bowman's 35-yard touchdown catch with less than four minutes off the clock put Northwestern ahead for good as they led wire-to-wire.

The Cats were led by senior quarterback Peyton Ramsey as he threw for 291 yards and three touchdowns, while adding another 50 yards and a touchdown with his legs. Ramsey's TDs were caught by Chiaokhiao-Bowman, John Raine and Riley Lees. Cam Porter also added a score on the ground.

It was the best game of Ramsey's one-year Wildcat career, and one that left everyone that watched feeling good about the direction of the Northwestern program.

Hankwitz's defense came play and held the Tigers to under 20 points while forcing one turnover. Hankwitz received the celebratory gatorade bath after notching his 400th career win in 51 years as a college coach.

The Cats dominated an SEC team in all phases on Jan. 1. Unfortunately, over the next 364 days they wouldn’t come anywhere close to that high point again.

MORE: Cats thump Auburn for fourth straight bowl win l Takeaways: Northwestern 35, Auburn 19

The rest of 2021 in Evanston could best be defined by losing. A lot of losing.

By the time the season finale rolled around, everyone in purple was pretty accustomed to embarrassing defeats. Six of the Wildcats' eight losses to that point had been by multiple scores.

Northwestern seemed determined to get a win over Illinois in the season finale and retain the Land of Lincoln Trophy for the seventh consecutive year.

“Any year, you always want to beat your rival,” Fitzgerald said. “It’s always great to win your last game. You send your seniors out the right way.”

It didn’t work out that way.

The Wildcats might have liked the idea of ending the season with a win, but save for a few players (Evan Hull and Stephon Robinson Jr.), no one in purple and white looked like they wanted to be there that day.

It showed as the Wildcats got pushed around in all three phases, from the opening kickoff to the final whistle. Fitzgerald's team was as unready to play as a team can be.

Illinois, one of the worst offenses in the country, totaled 459 yards and 47 points on defensive coordinator Jim O'Neil's unit. The Illini had 37 points at halftime, seven more than they scored in a full game all season. The final margin could have been much worse if Illinois didn't call off the dogs in the second half.

Even the 3-9 team in 2019 went down swinging and physically dominated Illinois to end the season. The 2021 team just lied down and took it from their in-state rivals. Calling it disheartening doesn’t begin to do it justice, and the fact that the bloodletting came in a rivalry game is why it was the worst point of the season — even worse than the 56-7 embarrassment at Nebraska in October.

The 2021 season was filled with innumerous disappointments, but none were bigger than watching the Cats quit while the Illini took back The Hat.

MORE: Illinois buries Northwestern to reclaim The Hat l Takeaways: Illinois 47, Northwestern 14

Poor Evan Hull. He deserved better. If NU had 22 Hulls on their roster, they would've been a lot closer to 9-3 than 3-9.

All season, the redshirt sophomore lined up in the backfield next to quarterbacks who could barely complete a pass and behind an offensive line that made revolving doors blush.

Despite all that, Hull just kept his legs pumping and totaled some very impressive numbers. He became the Cats' first 1,000-yard rusher since the most famous ball carrier of all, Justin Jackson, in 2017. Hull ran for 1,009 yards and seven touchdowns on 5.1 yards per carry. He also had 32 catches for 255 yards and another two touchdowns.

Hull was a warrior for Northwestern. He came to play every week, cracking the 100-yard barrier four times and reaching a season-high 216 against Ohio. Perhaps it was fitting that he reached 1,000 yards as the time ran out on the season; not even a blowout loss to Illinois could stop him from giving it everything he had.

The Minnesota native also added some excitement to a team that was the dreadful combination of boring and bad. His 90-yard touchdown sprint down the right sideline against Ohio and his 75-yard scamper to the end zone in the Big House were NU's two best plays of the season, and provide a glimmer of hope for the future.